Britain's hesitant space programme took another leap forward yesterday when 60 rockets flashed into the sky from a school near Birmingham. It was a small step for mankind but a very large one for Walsall, which can now claim to be in the vanguard of the country's tentative interest in things extraterrestrial.

More than 100 teenage engineers whooped as the slender missiles, each with two kilos of thrust from grade one rocket propellant, left graceful trails of smoke over Barr Beacon comprehensive's rugby pitch.

Behind them, the spiky nose of Skybolt, Britain's biggest rocket since the Black Arrow programme was abandoned in 1971, towered over the staff car park.

"It's bound to kindle interest in students who may previously have written off physics as boring," said Dame Mo Brennan, the head of the 1,360-pupil school, which was chosen by rocketeer Dr Steve Bennett for his biggest barrage to date. "We want everyone here to aim high, and you couldn't ask for a more literal example of that than this."

The hour-long launch was the latest stage in a campaign by Bennett, who lectures in physics with space technology at the University of Salford, to persuade a new generation that space travel under the union flag is a realistic ambition.

"It's a shame that we have a national tradition of poking fun at this when technically we've been so imaginative and successful," he said.

"We don't have the resources of the United States, but we understand that you don't have to throw money at space rockets for them to succeed. Why spend $12,000 [£6,000] on a pair of mole grip pliers, as Nasa did, when you can buy something equally good at B&Q?"

Barr Beacon enlisted Bennett and his 10-strong rocket-building company, Starchaser, to launch its gifted and talented pupil programme, a cohort of 120 students between 12 and 17 who could include future space experts if the rocket bug proves catching.

"I'm committed to English at university now," said 16-year-old Nick Harley, "but if I was just starting at Barr Beacon, I reckon this could have got me to change to science." A passing 12-year-old bore him out, chipping in: "Yes, I'm going to be an astronaut."

"It's an inspiring way of showing that schools like ours are ready to provide the professionals of the future," said Brennan, standing by the one-tonne, 10-metre-high Skybolt, which is due to take a payload into space in September.

Bennett and his colleagues agreed, after a morning which alternated rocket-making with lectures and Q&As about space technology. "It's interesting how many of them asked about ion propulsion," said Chris Adlington, one of the Starchaser team. "They're obviously well up on Star Trek, but it's very much the sort of field where real progress in space travel may take place." Women looked certain to play an equal role with men, added his colleague Peter Cuddey. "I've noticed today that they're just as enthusiastic as the lads, and, more important, they're the ones who read the instructions."

There were no crackly calls of "Walsall, we have a problem" as the rockets reached maximum height at several hundred feet, flipping open to release a parachute and flutter down for recovery and another firing. "We generally manage to keep them on site," said Bennett, "though we had one visit where a neighbour rang up to ask: why is the school firing missiles into my garden?"

Sixteen-year-old Luke Jarvis said that he had been converted to the notion of space travel, provided the price was right. "It's not for everybody but I would like it," he said. "We need more companies to join in, and more people to get interested."